Lucas gives update on SW live-action series

[Lord Insanity]

$50 million an episode is proportional time wise to a modern big budget movie, but I have a hunch its is much different. I bet that crazy guy intends to make a TV series filmed in full 3D to take advantage of those new TVs that commercials have recently been showing.

[VT-16]

Nobody is impressed with CGI anymore.

CG may not impress, but it's becoming a standard everywhere, even for tv series. This isn't the mid-90s anymore, where you'd get maybe one or two half-assed shots of a ship taking off/landing.

[Solauren]

It could be there is a lot of action in the series. This is Star Wars after all..

I can imagine a 40 minutes of say, the Battle of Kashyyyk, would be expensive.

Or imagine how much the entire Battle of Coruscant would have cost to do, not just the little slice we saw.

And it might be he doesn't want the show to look like Star Trek.

[LadyLazor]

I thought Lucas series would have a story that fit the constraints of TV production and not stretch them or exceed what is feasible. Since it appears this story is so epic in scale, I really wonder why he won't make it into a movie or a mini-series?

[Dooey Jo]

Apparently he's aiming to push it into syndication, which, I've heard, is where the real money is. Maybe big epicness sells better there.

[Sea Skimmer]

Syndication is big money indeed. I think it’s also a production time issue. Making 1 hour episodes allows for a most consistent pace of work to keep Lucas Film running but not bloated in size. Making a single movie means you bring on a lot of extra staff and then fire them all nine months later after a hectic pace of work. A TV show means looser deadlines and steadier pace. It’d also give a chance for feedback into the process, not that I necessarily believe Lucas would listen too any of it but at least you’d have a chance for rewrites of later episodes.

[Thanas]

Syndication is big money indeed.

Maybe, but not for shows that run on syndication alone. The last shows who tried that all failed.

[Srelex]

I'm sure if nothing else it'll make a profit from the DVDs alone.

Anyway, I wonder which writers Lucas hired for this (as I doubt he wrote all the scripts himself). I do have my own little ideal vision of the series in my head that I worked out over a while, like many nerds probably do (it would star Simon Pegg as a weapons dealer and Alexander Siddig as an Imperial officer for one) so I wonder how far off it'll be.

[Sea Skimmer]

Maybe, but not for shows that run on syndication alone. The last shows who tried that all failed.

You got to be kidding to even suggest that a production that big and with that big a name would not be on a major network first. Direct to Syndication almost never works because the networks are under zero obligation to buy outside program in the first place, but anything with Star Wars slapped on it will make money and be picked up by a major network long before filming begins.